- Is pumpkin your go to in Fall for eating and decorating with?
Pumpkins are a staple of Fall, whether you love to eat them or use them for decorations. Here are all the pumpkin fun facts you need to know.
- The word “pumpkin” comes from the Greek word, pepon. Pepon means a “large melon.”
- Pumpkins originally came from Central America.
- The earliest pumpkin pie was different then we know it today. Pilgrims and early settlers enjoyed “pumpkin pie” by hollowing out a pumpkin, filling the shell with milk, honey and spices.
- Pumpkin is also a squash and a member of Curcurbita family.
- You can eat the yellow-orange flowers that bloom on the pumpkin vine as they are edible.
- Roasted pumpkin seeds contain medicinal properties.
- Native Americans grew and ate pumpkins and seeds since the very beginning. Pilgrims learned how to grow and prepare pumpkins from the Native Americans.
- Early settlers dried pumpkins shells to cut it into strips and wove it into mats.
- Pumpkin has been prepared from soups to stews to desserts since the immigration of the first European settlers.
- The ‘Pumpkin Capital of the World’ is Morton, Illinois. Which is also the home of Libby’s pumpkin industry.
- The state of Illinois grows the most pumpkins and harvests about 12,300 acres of pumpkins every year.
- The latest U.S. record in 2019 for the largest pumpkin ever grown weighed in at 2,517.5 pounds. The pumpkin was grown by Karl Haist of Clarence Center, New York.
- At one time, pumpkins were thought of as a remedy for freckles and snakebites.
- Natural medicine practitioners proved that consuming pumpkin seeds reduces the risk of prostate disorders in men.
- Pumpkins are not vegetables, they’re fruits. Pumpkins along with cucumbers, tomatoes, and avocados, come from the flowers of their plants, making them all fruits.
- Each pumpkin has about 500 seeds. Wow, this is the coolest of all the pumpkin fun facts.
- Pumpkins take between 90 and 120 days to reach maturity.
- There are more than 45 different kinds of pumpkins. They have fun names like Baby Bear, Spooktacular, Ghost Rider, Tricky Jack, and Sweetie Pie.
- Atlantic Giants are considered the largest overall species of pumpkin. They can grow as much as 50 pounds in one day.
- Every part of the pumpkin is edible, including the skin, leaves, flowers, and stem.
- Pumpkin and other squash blossoms can be eaten raw.
- Pumpkin pie is America’s favorite Thanksgiving dessert and 35% of us prefer it over other pie options.
- Giant pumpkins are edible but not the best tasting. Use pie pumpkins, which are much smaller, for pumpkin pie.
- Pumpkins were originally small and bitter, they were selectively bred by Central and Native Americans to be bigger, fleshier, and sweeter.
- Many Americans grew “Victory Gardens” during World War II, to supplement their grocery rations. When Irish emigrants moved to America, they found pumpkins much more suitable for carving than turnips, and thus began the modern Jack o’ Lantern.Over 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins are grown every year in the United States.
- The largest pumpkin pie ever made came from the New Bremen Pumpkinfest in Ohio, with a record setting pie with a diameter of 20 feet in diameter. It weighed 3,699 pounds and the crust was made from 440 sheets of dough.
- Trevor Hunt holds the Guinness World Record for most pumpkins carved in an hour. He carved 109 pumpkins in 60 minutes, carving each pumpkin in an average of 33 seconds.
- The first Jack-o-Lanterns weren’t made from pumpkins at all, instead they were made out of turnups.
- The first time “pumpkin” showed up in print was in the fairytale Cinderella.
- The word “pumpkin” showed up for the first time in the fairy tale Cinderella. This is the best of the pumpkin fun facts!
- A French explorer in 1584 first called them “gros melons,” translated into English as “pompions.” They were first referred to as pumpkins starting in the 17th century.
- The highest pumpkin-producing states are Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California.
- Out of the total 1.5 billion pounds, over 800 million pumpkins are ripe for the picking in a single month of the year, October.
- Pumpkins grow on all continents except Antarctica.
- The best time to plant pumpkins is between May and July.
- Delaware used to host an annual “Punkin Chunkin” championship where teams competed in a pumpkin launching competition. The pumpkins were shot almost 5,000 feet from an air cannon. The event was eventually canceled in 2017 after there was a tragic accident in 2016.
- Pumpkins range in color like red, yellow and green with names like Hooligan, Cotton Candy and range Smoothie.
- Pumpkins are 90% water.
What do you think of all these pumpkin fun facts? For more on pumpkins, follow the link to read 10 Zoo Animals Enjoying Halloween Pumpkins.